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healeyb noted that Voyager 1 has now reached a distance from the sun where it is no longer able to detect solar wind. Launched in 1977 to get up close and personal with our solar system's gas giants, scientists estimate that in another 4 years it will cross the heliosphere.

They have also a different work motivation. The work to improve them selves and to better society. This is a very altruistic approach and it is totally anti-capitalistic. And I personally do not see any development in that direction. Even more it looks like that there is no lesson learned from the last economic disaster as we did not add any real regulation on the finance market.

They have also a different work motivation. The work to improve them selves and to better society. This is a very altruistic approach and it is totally anti-capitalistic. And I personally do not see any development in that direction. Even more it looks like that there is no lesson learned from the last economic disaster as we did not add any real regulation on the finance market.

Humans are genetically programmed to be selfish - capitalism is the system most closely aligned with human nature. Case in point, look at the communist systems of the USSR and China. What's the first thing the people in power do? Make sure they are taken care of and have whatever they want. Human nature. Good luck "correcting" that issue.

Humans are genetically programmed to be selfish - capitalism is the system most closely aligned with human nature

No, capitalism is the system most closely aligned with maximizing selfish values given the premise of scarce resources. If you violate that premise as Star Trek technology does, with its limitless fusion and anti-matter power, transporters, matter replicators, faster-than-light travel, etc then participating in capitalism may no longer be the solution that best maximizes selfish gain.

The human is not a purely egoistic machine. This has long be proven. However, he or she can act selfish. States like the USSR or China were not communistic societies even if they proclaimed it. They are communists just like North Korea is a democratic society, but their state is called Democratic People's Republic of Korea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_korea). However, the term communism is so widely used for different theories that it is not save to use it to identify one system.

Humans are genetically programmed to be selfish - capitalism is the system most closely aligned with human nature.

Unfortunately it isn't so simple. People are genetically/behaviorally "programmed" to be selfish in some ways and altruistic in others (through notably unselfish acts of charity). We're a mixed bag.
As a result of our mixed nature, neither pure free-market capitalism nor communism match the complex needs of the human psyche. I suppose it's why mixed (market+social) economies are so prevalent around the world.

Current finance regulations are what caused all the problems. If people hadn't grown up with the need to get around gov't regulation, they never would have learned to be duplicitous and greedy and instead, would live lives of mild temperament and contemplation. Remember, all children are saint like and it's just society that teaches them to be mean and controlling.

It is the time line where we didn't blow us up. So Cochrane does not develop the warp drive and we all die out because we use an un-desinfected phone. Oh wait... wrong book. Anyway this reality is the one which hasn't been produced so far. It will be named:

Star Trek @home

and the story is, that the crew stays in San Fransisco in a bar going nowhere. And in the end the leave the convention and go home in a rusty taxi and are hit by a meteor containing Braxton or Dr. Who (but I am not totally sure).

what will be interesting is when it gets into interstellar space - too see how its trajectory changes and why. will there be a strong wind to take it else where or will it no longer per part of our solar system momentum through the universe - or will it just keep going as if everything i sitting still..

Well at this rate, it would take around half a billion years to colonize the entire galaxy, which over cosmic timescales isn't too bad I suppose. As for visiting other galaxies, I'd be inclined to say it could never happen, but then it seems that our nearby galaxies are going to visit us [wikipedia.org] so that saves us the trouble.

Half a billion years is a fairly short time in galactic timescales. It took approximately one billion years after the Earth formed for life to appear, and then 3.5 billion years to get to us. You'd only need to evolve slightly faster than us (or slower, but around a first-generation star) to have been spacefaring for over half a billion years, which makes you wonder slightly why no one has colonised our star already.

It's worth remembering that we've only been chucking things into space for about half a

If someone else did this already, they hid their probes pretty well...

Um... What makes you say that?

It doesn't seem like they would have to be hiding much, or at all for that matter, for us to miss them.

Look at a recent development at the limits of human observational ability: We just discovered that Eris is, despite its greater mass, may not actually be larger in diameter than Pluto. We did not do this by actually resolving the disk with sufficient resolution to answer the question, but by timing how lo

No, particle/theoritical physicists will discover two more fundamental forces.

I was hinting that First* Contact will happen by ~ 2032 (give or take a few years.) Frankly, I just want this be over with so we can move onto bigger questions -- What is your preception of Mathematics? Physics? Biology? Theology? If FTL isn't going to give the physicists head-aches for years, then when they understand the "edge" of the Universe, that will.;-)

I don't care about how our size, or our reach into space, compares with galactic distances. Probably most if not all intelligent life in the universe are falling into the same category of small, if our understanding of physics is basically right.

But i would be worried if our small reach is in time, both in the survival sense or in the thinking one. As species we are more worried about getting a fast profit than the effects of our behaviour for what will become the world in 50, 100 or more years (and that,

But i would be worried if our small reach is in time, both in the survival sense or in the thinking one. As species we are more worried about getting a fast profit than the effects of our behaviour for what will become the world in 50, 100 or more years (and that, without even touching odds of global catastrophes like asteroid hit or runaway climate change, just social changes could be as destructive for us)

True, Voyager 1 has only travelled a short way between stars within our galaxy -- but here is a cool fact (I think).The Milky Way Galaxy is moving relative to the rest of the Universe (as defined by the Cosmic Microwave Background frame of reference) at 279 ± 68 km/sec, just under 0.1% the speed of light. This is the speed with which we are moving through the Universe. Thus if you live to be 80 years old (a typical lifespan today) you will die in a region of the Universe 0.074 light years from where you were born, and the first pyramids were built in Egypt in a region of the Universe more distant than Alpha Centauri.

They also shot those things out at a rather slow--relatively speaking--pace of just 16.8 km/s and 12.9 km/s for V1 and V2 respectively. Our present, flight proven electric drive technologies are a order of magnitude faster. Get to the nearest star fast, no, but we could certainly play out in the Kupiter belt and only have to wait a few years rather than a few decades like with did with these. Make no mistake I'm glad we got them out there. They've sent back some really awesome stuff but I also think it'

It's really mind-boggling to think that we can still receive data from it. From that distance, it takes about 16 hours for the data to arrive. And to think, I can't even get a reliable cell phone signal at home.

How far would a probe with similar mass but equipped to expend it's energy on thrust at a similar rate make it over a similar period of time? I.e. with even a modest force of acceleration, what would be the current velocity and distance, relative to our sun?

The fact we are still able to communicate with a piece of 33 year old technology (I'm only a few years older myself, and possibly not in as good a shape either) further away than any man made object ever launched, and are still getting useful science from it is nothing short of remarkable - matched only Spirits extended mission time so far, IMHO.
And then, sometimes we can't even launch a satellite or two properly..

It seems quite likely now, yes. They lost communication in late March, the winter solstice was in late May so you'd expect it back around late July the way I'm thinking. It's 5 months past that now with 4 months left to peak production. If it survived the winter at all you'd think that would be long enough to get back in touch, of course it did get stuck in a less than ideal position so it might have trouble recharging enough. Worth listening to, but I would be surprised if it recovers and if it does it'll

The part I always find amazing is that it sends the data from that distance on a 23-watt radio transmitter.

I've taken electrical engineering classes on this topic, and I understand how it's done, but I still find mind boggling that we can decode information sent with the power equivalent of a dim light bulb from well beyond the orbit of Pluto.

If we had the collective courage [read - no enviro-wackos] to use RTGs [wikipedia.org] on our Mars probes, we wouldn't have lost Spirit to freezing temperatures brought on by low power from the solar cells.

The real reason is simply optimizing for the mission profile. The MERs were relatively small devices with very tight mass budgets, and an RTG of sufficient power would have been too heavy compared to the solar panel/battery combo they went with instead. It was an engineering trade-off. They did, by the way, use RHUs to heat components but this was not sufficient to stave off freezing by itself.

The Mars Science Laboratory is going to use an RTG. It is a much larger rover, with power demands beyond what solar panels could provide, and with a more generous amount of mass to dedicate to the power system.

We used 'em on quite a few spacecraft [wikipedia.org] - why they aren't used more often for solar power-limited missions escapes me.

Yeah, which I would think would have suggested that maybe enviro-wacko objection to the concept of RTGs had nothing to do with it. This is a lobby with surprisingly less power than you might think.:)

We've left all but the most broad definitions of the solar system behind on $865 million, and yet we spend nearly that amount per unit to enable the annihilation of millions of our fellow beings without them ever knowing [wikipedia.org].

Well yes. Western countries are totally over militarized. And especially the USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures [wikipedia.org] if I read this correctly than the US alone contributes with 43 % to the world's military budget. And the other NATO states add up to 19-20% of the budget. So in total NATO spends 62% of the world's military budget. Looks like we are a little over prepared when it comes to self-defense.

I agree with your point in the broad strokes, but also remember that a lot of military budget goes to research and development, albeit wastefully. For FY2010 (including Iraq and Afghanistan), the US spent $79B on "Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation". If even a percent of those dollars has the effectiveness of NASA's, that alone doubles the amount we spend on futurism.

Yes, there are, but SMS uses a reduced character set and so seven bits per character. It's 140 bytes to represent 160 characters. That's my understanding at least, backed up by a cursory google. I could of course be wrong.

Not to dismiss, but keep in mind that is the total dollars spent, in which the vast majority was in 1970's dollars.

Assuming that was mostly spent in, say, 1975 (figuring 700m of it), that would be almost $3b in "official" 2009 dollars, although arguably the government has been playing games with the inflation figures for most of the 2000s, so its likely actually more.

Since it is almost the same age as me, I feel a kinship with the little guy. It's amazing that it's still sending back readings after all theses years and millions of miles travelled in the deep dark infinite space. Onward to interstellar space! Godspeed!

Has it ever occurred to you that one of the reasons why NASA missions are so expensive is because you can't just yank shit of a shelf, stuff it in a box, and hope that it works in space? Did it cross your mind that the people with the know how to correctly engineer something that can last in space for extended periods of time aren't exactly cheap?

Does anyone else remember with wonder those extended TV broadcasts where they spent all night on prime-time network TV to show off the latest incoming photos? And they even interviewed actual scientists about what the data meant.

Voyager probes are frigging HUGE. why cant we launch the same thing twice, but have them assemble in orbit and give it a chemical kick in the ass to get the slingshotting down and then when it get's it's last slingshot around juipeter kick in the Ion engines to do a long hard burn for a few years to get the thing really hauling ass.

I'll bet with current tech we can get past Voyager 1 within 10 years AND have better instruments, a stronger transmitter, far more sensitive receiver, etc.... Seriously. NASA could do this right now and we might see a flyby of another star within a 200 year window.

Voyager has taken since 1977 to get where it is and is currently hitting 14km/s. At those speeds, dusts rips you apart let alone anything else (it's 50400 km/h or 31317 mph). It takes YEARS to accelerate to that speed even with a constant acceleration from a nuclear powered engine that has had to work, unattended, since before I was born.

If you *do* somehow manage to fund a mission (impossible) to do the exact same thing as an existing successful mission (extremely dubious given the

" Voyager has taken since 1977 to get where it is and is currently hitting 14km/s. At those speeds, dusts rips you apart let alone anything else (it's 50400 km/h or 31317 mph). It takes YEARS to accelerate to that speed even with a constant acceleration from a nuclear powered engine that has had to work, unattended, since before I was born."

Voyager has NO Thrust engines only attitude control. It's last acceleration was during a slingshot past the gas giants. It has had ZERO acceleration since 1979.

Also Voyager 1 and 2 have no problem with this rip me apart dust you seem to think is all over the place out there.

as for your claims of impossibility... So then Voyager 1,2, Viking, the Moon landings all were faked then? Because I'm asking for no more than doing what we did in the 70's but with current technology. It is very possible.

Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years out. an ion engine being able to thrust for 20 years with a set of Gridded Electrostatic ion thrusters achieve 100 kNs/k and some have had 210 kNs/k but not tested in continuous operation for 3 years like the older ones. Designing a craft to have 20 years worth of fuel and Nuclear power is not hard at all we did it in the 70's. and that kind of acceleration would get the craft to a fraction of light speed. Even a 1KW transmitter can send back telemetry to earth at a 1 light year distance if you reduce the data rate and still have fuel to keep the antenna pointed home.

Granted giving it commands will be difficult, but we can make it smart so it can operate on it's own or with limited command needs.

All of it is doable because we already did the hard parts of it several times already.

Voyager probes are frigging HUGE. why cant we launch the same thing twice, but have them assemble in orbit and give it a chemical kick in the ass to get the slingshotting down and then when it get's it's last slingshot around juipeter kick in the Ion engines to do a long hard burn for a few years to get the thing really hauling ass.

Because it's really, really, REALLY, REALLY freaking expensive. You're talking a big task considering the need to develop the technology both for the probe and for on-orbit asse

I am not an astrophysicist, so I don't understand the subtelties of this, but it should be noted that NASA press release says the probe has measured a solar wind decline, not that the probe is beyond the solar wind. Specifically, it says the solar wind has 'no outward motion'. The probe's environment is still dominated by the solar wind because it is still in the heliosphere, or, as NASA says, 'Crossing into interstellar space would mean a sudden drop in the density of hot particles and an increase in the density of cold particles.'

Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 17.4 billion kilometers (10.8 billion miles) from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.

...

Scientists believe Voyager 1 has not crossed the heliosheath into interstellar space. Crossing into interstellar space would mean a sudden drop in the density of hot particles and an increase in the density of cold particles. Scientists are putting the data into their models of the heliosphere's structure and should be able to better estimate when Voyager 1 will reach interstellar space. Researchers currently estimate Voyager 1 will cross that frontier in about four years.

Voyager is travelling 38,000 mph, directly away from the Sun. If its sensors no longer feel the push of the Solar Wind its because the wind is now going slower, say 37,999 mph, but not yet zero mph as the article title might imply. The wind is most likely still there, we just can not sense it anymore with the technology aboard the spacecraft.

Voyager is travelling 38,000 mph, directly away from the Sun. If its sensors no longer feel the push of the Solar Wind its because the wind is now going slower, say 37,999 mph, but not yet zero mph as the article title might imply. The wind is most likely still there, we just can not sense it anymore with the technology aboard the spacecraft.

Doesn't the wind go at the speed of light? Or is it something to do with the speed the craft would be going if the wind were the only thing pushing it?

It's fascinating to think that in just about four years the first man-made object will leave our solar system. And to think that only a little over 100 years ago we were still trying to get ourselves airborne. We've come a long way. I wish I knew what we'd be doing 100 years from today.

er... picking through radioctive rubble and looking for a scrap to eat?... avoiding Triffids?